(04-11-2019, 09:48 PM)Renatus Wrote:

(10-11-2013, 10:58 AM)Renatus Wrote: I'm playing my cards a little close to my chest but all will be revealed in due course.

I am reviving this thread to make good on this promise.

The passage in question does not come from any ancient writer but from a seventeenth century French  work entitled La Milice Romaine by Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen (Gallicised as Jean Jaques de Wallhausen) published in Frankfurt am  Main in 1616. This work was simultaneously published in German under the title Romanische Kriegskunst. It consists of two parts, the first being a discussion between a Roman and a German in which Roman training methods are described and the second being a translation of Vegetius. The passage is a slightly abridged translation of Chapter 8 of the first part.

The manuscript that I mention I found in the British Library. It is unattributed but is in the handwriting of Lord Thomas Fairfax, first Captain-General of the New Model Army and commander-in-chief of Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War. It is an abridged translation of the first three books of Vegetius' treatise and is translated, not from the Latin but from von Wallhausen's French translation. The omission of certain chapters irrelevant to seventeenth-century warfare and marginal notes indicating an intention to re-order some other chapters lead me to the conclusion that Fairfax was creating a manual, based on Vegetius, for the use of his fellow commanders and/or subordinates more applicable to his own time but retaining its ancient authority.

My findings have been published in the Modern Language Review, the reference there being:

Michael King Macdona, 'Thomas, 3rd Lord Fairfax and Vegetius', The Modern Language Review, vol. 113, no. 2, 2018, pp. 307–320.

I have also uploaded the article to academia.edu, the link being:

https://www.academia.edu/38776177/Thomas_3rd_Lord_Fairfax_and_Vegetius

(04-13-2019, 01:05 AM)Condottiero Magno Wrote: Will Fairfax's unstarted work with notes  be uploaded by the British Library at some point?

(04-13-2019, 06:43 AM)Renatus Wrote:

(04-13-2019, 01:05 AM)Condottiero Magno Wrote: Will Fairfax's unstarted work with notes  be uploaded by the British Library at some point?

I very much doubt it. It is tucked away, unattributed, in the Harley Collection.  However, they have it on microfilm, so would presumably provide a hard copy, for a price.  That's how I got my copy.

(04-13-2019, 09:59 PM)Renatus Wrote: Condottiero,

Your post on Lead Adventure Forum seems to have generated a lot of interest - ECW buffs, I guess. Thanks for the publicity.

(04-14-2019, 01:04 AM)Condottiero Magno Wrote: I get the impression this has to be done in person, as I can't find it on the online microfilm catalogue.

(04-14-2019, 01:04 AM)Condottiero Magno Wrote: I have Christopher Allmand's The De Re Militari of Vegetius: The Reception, Transmission and Legacy of a Roman Text in the Middle Ages and now looking for a work doing the same for the later 16th and 17th/18th Centuries.